


Champion

by Lokisgame



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Developing Friendships, Episode: s01e03 Squeeze, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-09 00:49:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11658156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lokisgame/pseuds/Lokisgame
Summary: He liked her, she appreciated the path, ready to walk the walk, and even if they disagreed about methods or theories, she was open and challenging, and a pleasure to work with like a 1000 piece puzzle.





	Champion

He remembers his dream. Her lips soft, pliant, sweet against his. Parting in a smile, when his tongue searches for hers, to taste her, to test her. He gently tugs at her lower lip, thumb caressing her cheek. Slow, savoring, teasing.  
Lick for bite, nibble for suck, she's kissing him back, she kisses like she lives, with confidence, she's the brave one. She wants this, she takes it. She takes him.  
He woke up harder than he's been in months, from a simple kiss, and not even a real one. 

She’ll remember him like this, walking up the stairs in a gray suit, one hand in the pocket of his pants. His green eyes warm as he smiles in greeting, content. This is the image she will keep forever. The innocence, face unmarked by loss, when the truth was still this beautiful idea and not a double-edged sword. 

 

The guy was getting on Mulder’s nerves from the beginning. He was angry for Scully, letting herself be played like that, to be set up as a scape goat if the thing went sideways, to take the blame for failing to solve the case.  
Mulder couldn't help the bile rising in him, the bitter disillusionment of watching her among her peers, the people from the outside, friends to her, strangers to him. Secretly he hoped she was ignorant of his reputation (oh he did know he had one), because so far it seemed she was determined to look past it. Now, between those rat-racing ladder climbers, there was something off in the tone of her voice as she spoke to him, like he was the cooky, geeky buddy she indulged by giving ear to his theories. He didn't want to be wrong about her, he didn't want to be a bullet point in her Curriculum Vitae. He liked her, she appreciated the path, ready to walk the walk, and even if they disagreed about methods or theories, she was open and challenging, and a pleasure to work with like a 1000 piece puzzle. It was frustrating and gratifying to have someone like her as a partner.

“We’ll see about that”  
_'Who do you think you are you half-witted asshole? You don't deserve to shine her shoes'_  
Mulder was fuming inside, watching the exchange with murder in his eyes, as Colton suggested that she was wasting her time on a loser, until he realized the guy was betting the wrong way. She did know how to look out for herself, no one will tell Dana Scully what she could and could not do. She stood by him and she stood up for him, and from petite 5'2" she grew a mile in an instant. She blew Colton off, and Mulder's heart grew three sizes.  
Everybody thought he was the loser Spooky Mulder, the laughing stock of the bureau, poster boy for wasted potential and forfeited career.  
He cared about people no one else would listen to, the wack jobs and chicken little's who suffered great tragedies and loss but no authority ever bothered to help them, give some closure or at least a fair chance for ever finding the truth about what ruined their lives. He was thinking about people who claimed to be abducted by aliens, who lost their loved ones in mysterious circumstances. He cared about people no one else listened to, and for that he was punished by his superiors and laughed at by his peers.  
Not Scully, she made things possible. She listened to his bizarre theory and didn't dismiss it. It was challenging and frustrating, aggravating even, but he recognized and appreciated talent, insight and sharp mind in a partner. They were in this together again, a small victory for Team Spooky. Could anyone blame him for wanting to keep her to himself?

The next day at the crime scene, when the guy touched him, and he was one step away from ripping his liver out himself, Scully kept her white gloves on and twisted the guy’s neck before he could say “Hannibal Lecter”. She'll be the head of the bureau if she keeps playing like that. 

Mulder saw what an unsolved mystery could do a man, the old cop in the nursing home waiting years for them, and saw his own future.  
How the unexplained could gnaw at the man’s spirit, and how Scully, with her torch of science and rationalism and a new way of cutting through darkness could save him. 

The monster found her. A vision of her body ripped apart was playing over and over in his mind as he raced through the evening traffic, desperate, praying he'll get there in time. They were both trained, she was armed, but it was a monster they were dealing with.  
It can't be happening, not to her, the fear she might leave was nothing compared to this. She's not answering, _pick up damnit,_ he shouts at his cell phone, willing the thought to get through to her. Just four more blocks, don't let me be too late, the fear tastes like bile, he can't be late, not this time, not to save her. His car almost fishtails on the last turn before he parks, he's out running up the path, almost knocking over the woman exiting the building, up the few steps, he hears her scream. He kicks down the door, no time for subtleties, he goes in, gun drawn, he made it.  
Together they brought Tooms down. 

He almost lost her, they got involved in something that could potentially go spectacularly wrong. If he was there five minutes later, her life would be in genuine danger. How will she take it, the first time, it was a fire in their motel, the second time it were military helicopters, now this monster, invading her home. Will she finally have enough? Is she considering getting away as far from danger as she can, to protect her life?  
He looks at the monster, building his nest, wondering if these bars can keep him in and away from her, from finishing what he started? Will he be there in time to save her again? In 30 years perhaps?

She's still there, still intrigued by the science, by his theory confirmed.  
He can't feel it, the joy of victory, the excitement, he's too frightened by the possibilities, by what-if's of losing another partner.  
Her touch brings him back, but the fear is there now, lodged between his heart and mind. If something happened to her…


End file.
